Mary Showstark: A Global Health Leader Reshaping Education and Disaster Response
Mary Showstark, PA-C, PhD, FAWM (Fellow of the Academy of Wilderness Medicine), represents a new generation of physician associates (PAs) whose vision extends far beyond traditional clinical practice. As vice president of PAs for Global Health and founder of the International Federation of Physician Assistants/Associates/Clinical Officers/Clinical Associates/Comparable Student Association (IFPACS), Showstark has become one of the most influential voices advocating for equity, innovation, and interprofessional collaboration in health professions education and disaster response. Her work spans trauma surgery, emergency medicine, global health, security studies, and educational technology, a combination of expertise that has positioned her as a thought leader in understanding how healthcare systems can better serve underserved populations in complex environments.
Early Life and Path to Medicine
Mary Showstark grew up in Miami, FL, where her early exposure to the profession came unexpectedly. As a college student, she developed mononucleosis and visited her university’s student clinic, where a PA provided her care. This encounter sparked a revelation: she had found her calling. “I always wanted to work in medicine,” she recalls, noting with self-aware humor that, “I cannot sing or dance, but I am good at helping people.” This straightforward perspective on her strengths would later translate into a career marked by pragmatic solutions to complex global health challenges.
Education and Academic Credentials
Showstark’s educational trajectory demonstrates her intellectual ambition and evolving professional interests. She began at the University of Florida, earning a BA in English and pre-medical studies in 2001. This interdisciplinary undergraduate foundation in both the humanities and the sciences laid the groundwork for her integration of communication skills and scientific rigor—qualities essential to her later achievements in education and advocacy.
Building on this foundation, Showstark continued her graduate training at the University of Florida, completing her Master of PA Studies (MPAS). Later, she pursued a PhD in Security and Intelligence Studies at the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom. This addition of formal doctoral training highlights a significant transition in her career, reflecting her recognition that healthcare challenges intersect with global security—insights that have shaped her consulting work and influence on health policy.
Clinical Career and Disaster Medicine
Showstark’s clinical career began with key leadership roles in traditional healthcare settings, such as serving as chief PA at the University of Florida Health Shands Hospital, where she developed skills in both patient care and clinical education. Over time, she intentionally shifted her focus toward disaster and emergency medicine, a field that would ultimately define her professional identity.
Over her career, Mary Showstark has responded to major humanitarian crises and natural disasters across multiple continents. In response to the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, she deployed as a disaster PA, providing emergency care in a devastated healthcare system. She repeated this commitment following the 2015 earthquake in Nepal, responding to the massive public health emergency with frontline clinical expertise. Showstark’s disaster response experience extends to additional deployments in Venezuela, the Bahamas for hurricane Dorian, NYC for hurricane Sandy, hurricane Michael in the FL panhandle, and hurricane Melissa in Jamaica, as well as the Maui wildfires and Los Angeles fires. She has also served as a DMAT (Disaster Medical Assistance Team) PA for the U.S. Government, providing medical coverage at several government details including the 2017 White House presidential inauguration.
Beyond traditional emergency medicine, Showstark recognized early that security teams and high-profile events require specialized medical expertise. She developed a practice providing healthcare coverage for private security clients and expanded this to include medical support at major global sporting and cultural events. Her experience includes the U.S. Open Tennis Championship, Burning Man, the World Surf League, the New York City Marathon, the Paris Olympics, and Tough Mudder competitions. This work required her to develop clinical skills for managing medical emergencies in unconventional settings, often with limited infrastructure and high-stress environments.
Global Education and Innovation
Showstark’s most transformative work is in global health education. She has taught more than 20,000 learners worldwide through collaborations with governments and institutions, including significant initiatives with the World Bank and Yale University. At Yale, she played a key role in launching the first fully online physician associate medical training program in the United States, expanding access to PA education and workforce development by removing geographic barriers. At the World Bank, Mary Showstark serves as a senior disaster management specialist, advising on disaster management, health system resilience, and emergency operation centers in developing countries.
Knowing that improving global health education needs new tech, Showstark created several virtual educational tools. She founded Virtual Interprofessional Education (VIPE) to support collaborative learning across health professions, later expanding it into a transdisciplinary platform that brings together experts from fields such as technology, AI, security, and intelligence to address complex global challenges. She created Wild Med Wednesday, a talk series that brings together experts on wilderness medicine and disaster response. She also started the PAs for the Global Health talk series and the PAGH networking platform, helping healthcare workers learn from each other worldwide.
Through her work with Health Tech Without Borders, Showstark has advanced telemedicine and digital health services across complex settings, most notably in the Ukraine conflict, where she helped coordinate digital health services across the Dnipro region. Showstark has contributed to the development of AI-driven educational chatbots that support learners in Sudan and Ukraine, helping teach critical skills such as hemorrhage control (Stop the Bleed) in regions with limited medical infrastructure. She has also developed tele-health educational programs across Pakistan.
Curricular Innovation and International Collaboration
Recognizing the diversity of PA-comparable professions worldwide, Showstark co-developed an extension to the LOOOP educational curriculum mapping platform, specifically for PAs and similar professions across 32 countries. She led the curriculum mapping team to standardize the tool and compare educational frameworks for international PA programs. This initiative laid the groundwork for global competency mapping and has been key to establishing professional standards and the potential for international mobility.
Her contributions to international credentialing and professional standards extend to her work with the World Health Organization. She served as an author of the WHO Global Competency Framework, marking the first time the physician associate profession was formally recognized within WHO’s international health professions standards. This was a historic achievement for the profession, elevating its standing in global health governance. This was followed by a novel study, which she spearheaded, that mapped PA comparable professions’ scope of practice in multiple countries to the WHO Global Competency Framework.
Leadership in Professional Organizations
Showstark’s contributions to the profession have been recognized through multiple leadership roles. She is the vice president of PAs for Global Health, helping to shape the profession’s engagement with international health challenges. As an American Academy of PAs (AAPA) Global Ambassador, she has become the public face of the PA profession’s commitment to global health equity.
Mary Showstark was the former communications director (2019-2023) for the International Academy of Physician Assistant Educators (IAPAE). In that position, she convened and led monthly IAPAE calls and curriculum mapping sessions, creating consistent forums for international dialogue among PA educators. She has acted as an unofficial liaison to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland, to advance the profession’s engagement with recognition, international labor standards, and workforce policy.
She founded IFPACS, which established the first truly international federation of PA student organizations, creating essential infrastructure for professional solidarity and knowledge sharing among PA students worldwide.
Mary Showstark was the editor of the Journal of PA Education’s Global Perspectives article series from 2022-2025. She also created the Journal of the AAPA’s Global Insights, an ongoing article series which ensures that the profession’s leading journal reflects the diversity of PA practice and scholarship worldwide. Showstark also led a major research initiative for the PA profession, connecting physician associates/assistants globally and supporting them in bringing their work to publication. For many, this marked the first time their professions were able to publish their own perspectives and achievements, rather than having them described by outside observers. Through mentorship and collaboration, Showstark helped guide contributors through the writing and publication process. This effort resulted in the first published series highlighting 32 PA-comparable professions worldwide, which appeared in the Social Innovations Journal in collaboration with the Network Towards Unity for Health.
Honors and Recognition
Showstark’s contributions have been recognized with multiple prestigious awards and honors:
- International Network for Health Workforce Education’s inaugural Lesley Diack award in recognition of her educational contributions (2021).
- S. Public Health Service and Interprofessional Education Collaborative’s IPEC/COF Excellence in IPE Collaboration award (2021).
- The Interprofessional Education Collaborative’s All Together Better Health award (2023).
- The Clinton Global Initiative’s Commitment to Action award (2023) and 2025.
- The Leonard Tow Humanitarian Nomination (2020-2021) from Yale University, recognizing her commitment to service and global health.
- National Academies of Practice. (2026). Interprofessional Group Recognition Award.
She serves as a judge for the Aurora Prize for Humanitarianism and the Earthshot Prize, positions that reflect her standing among leaders committed to global sustainability and humanitarian action.
Global Impact and Vision
Mary Showstark’s impact is reflected in her extensive global engagement. She has traveled to more than 130 countries, bringing expertise in disaster medicine, health education, and organizational development directly to communities, institutions, and partners worldwide. Through this work, she has collaborated with the World Health Organization, government agencies, NGOs, and academic institutions to strengthen preparedness, resilience, and cross-sector collaboration.
Legacy and Future Directions
Mary Showstark is the founder and CEO of On The Ground AI, a platform designed to connect governments, NGOs, the private sector, financial institutions, donors, and citizens during times of disaster. The system provides real-time mapping to improve situational awareness, allowing responders to identify where aid is already being delivered and where gaps remain so that no communities are overlooked. It also enables the tracking of supplies and shipments to reduce duplication and improve coordination across responding organizations.
Her international work has also focused on strengthening global professional networks and workforce development. Showstark has helped connect physician associates worldwide, identifying approximately 80 countries with PA-comparable professions, representing about 35 different professional titles – highlighting both the diversity and potential of this workforce globally.
Showstark represents the continued evolution of the physician associate profession into roles of global leadership and transformational innovation. By combining rigorous clinical training with doctoral-level scholarship in security and intelligence studies, she brings a distinctive perspective to healthcare challenges at the intersection of medicine, education, technology, and policy.
Her work establishing the International Federation of Physician Assistant/Associate and Clinical Officer/Comparable Students (IFPACS), advancing interprofessional education through the Virtual IPE (VIPE) network and other platforms, contributing to WHO competency frameworks, and responding to disasters across the globe demonstrates a commitment to building a more equitable, resilient, and collaborative global health system.
Through her teaching, writing, consulting, and advocacy, Showstark continues to expand the vision of what physician associates can contribute to addressing the world’s most pressing health challenges. Her legacy will likely be measured not only in the students she has taught or the lives she has helped save in disaster zones, but also in the structural changes she has helped create in how health professions education and global collaboration are conceived and delivered.
Acknowledgments:
This biography was written by Randy Danielsen with the assistance of Mary Showstark. It was submitted to the Society in March 2026. All photographs are courtesy of Dr. Showstark.
When using information from this biography, please provide the proper citation as described within the PA History Society Terms of Use.
